It's All About the Research
by joshlamont
Summary: Dawn as always gets captured by some demons trying to end the world. Or possibly just having a nice snack. Either way, she's strung up and fit to be tied. And just when she's about ready to let loose a devastating insult- they're interrupted.


Hopefully this works as a sequel. As always, I own nothing.

* * *

Well, wasn't this a pretty pickle. No, scratch that, pickles were glorious. Unless that phrase was supposed to be _sarcasm…_ huh. Still, very annoying. Dawn tried to scratch her nose. She was _supposed_ to be taking a Trig test right now. Hopefully the teacher would be understanding and let her retake it, but she didn't think "virgin sacrifice" would work very well as an excuse.

"Hey, fugly, could we get on with this!" she shouted.

The demon's head jerked up. "What did you say?" He had a bowl of blood in his hand. Oh, right. That's why she was feeling so light-headed. The blood was hers.

"That's what you guys are called, right? Because you're so fucking ugly?"

The demon hissed. "Keep taunting, little monkey. We'll gorge on your flesh soon enough."

"Yo, fugly!" A strong voice shouted.

The demon whirled.

"See?" said an old guy in fatigues. "I told you that's what they're called!"

The guy beside him rolled his eyes. "Yes, Jack. That's a fugly demon."

"Anyway." The old guy turned toward them. Whoa, hot-alert. "You wouldn't happen to have a little twirly doohickey around would you? Has words that look like someone went stab-happy with knitting needles?" He paused as he took in Dawn. "Oh, I'm sorry, are we interrupting something?"

"Just a little blood sacrifice." Dawn replied. Ah, _that_ was proper sarcasm.

"Really?" The hot old guy replied cheerfully. "Mind if we help? We've been to an awful lot of those."

"Indeed." The very large and also very hot black guy added. "Though I fear all too often we were to be the sacrifice."

The demon's eyes widened as the old guy's hands came up with a shot-gun. "_Slaughter them!_" he screamed.

Monsters of every shape and size launched themselves at the three guys.

"Carter!" the old guy hollered. "About now would be nice!"

"Just give me a second, and- ah!" A blond woman appeared beside the old guy. "Got it!"

The demons slammed into a barrier of some sort and shrieked in agony.

"Is it one way?" the old guy demanded.

"As requested, sir!"

"Lovely." He fired his shotgun.

"Mages!" the fugly demon screamed, "Tear down their barriers!"

The scrrrl'kt demons who had been working on the blood circle in front of Dawn turned to the fight and began casting. The shield glowed purple briefly before nothing happened.

"Take it down!" the fugly screamed again.

"Weeeee ca'an-_note_," the scrrl'kt rasped. "Ittt _iz note!_ Of' our' mag-_icks_."

"Then I'll kill the girl now and use whatever comes!" The fugly whirled on Dawn with his knife.

"Oh, _hell_, no!" Dawn exclaimed, and swung her legs around. One of the advantages of being chained to the ceiling- it gives you a _hell_ of a lot of momentum. Her steel-clad toes impacted with the fugly's jaw and removed several important parts. Another advantage- having your steel-toes sharpened.

The fugly shrieked and vomited.

"Oh, nasty!" said the old guy's voice. Dawn jerked her head up. The military guys (they had to be military) had apparently redecorated the sacrificial chamber with demon parts.

"Indeed." The big guy commented. "However, very well executed for an untrained female."

"Hey!" Dawn exclaimed, "I'll have you know I'm very well trained!"

The big guy cocked his head and gave her a _look_.

"Okay, mostly trained." Dawn amended. "But you get a feel for these things after the fiftieth time!"

"Perhaps so."

"Yeah, yeah, compare notes later." The old guy waved. "You wouldn't happen to have seen little twirly doohickey, would you?"

"Fugly's left pocket."

"Eeexcellent. Now, if you don't mind-"

There was a sudden explosion.

"Dawn!" a voice shrieked. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Buffy!" Dawn hollered back.

"Good! Because you are _so _in trouble young-" Buffy froze as she came out of the dust. "You!"

"Me!" the old guy exclaimed.

"Oh, hey, it's Colonel O'Neill!" Xander said cheerfully, coming up behind Buffy. "Hey, Danny, Carter. Teal'c, big guy, nice to see you!"

"Xander!" Dawn exclaimed.

He grinned. "Hey, Dawnie. Mixin' it with the apocalypse crowd again? I swear, you try to do your best and raise a girl right-"

Dawn snorted.

"Well, glad we facilitated this nice happy reunion, but we've got places to go, people to kill." The colonel waved. "Bye, now!"

"Oh, no, you don't!" Buffy exclaimed. "What's that in your hand?"

"This?" O'Neill's eyes widened innocently. "Nothing."

"Looks like something to me! You can't have it."

"Hey, finders-keepers!" Colonel O'Neill protested.

"It's too dangerous for the military to mess with magical artifacts!"

"It's not magical!"

"And how do you know? You're messing with things you don't understand!"

"Au contraire, crazy small woman. For you see, we have…" Colonel O'Neill gestured dramatically. "A geek!"

"No!" Xander exclaimed, "Not a geek!"

"The same!"

"What?" Buffy wrinkled her nose.

"He is the keeper of the sacred words-"

A light went off in Daniel's brain. "Jack, seriously?" he groaned.

O'Neill turned on Daniel. "Ni!"

"_A-ah!_" Xander cringed.

"What?" Buffy asked confusedly.

"Don't worry about it, dear." Willow patted Buffy's shoulder. "Just the boys being silly."

"We had our geek go through every known legend and then our other geek procured arms based on their weaknesses." O'Neill grinned.

Buffy put her hands on her hips. "You can't kill vampires with guns."

O'Neill grinned. "Incendiaries and tracers. And phosphorus grenades."

Xander whistled. "Literally playing with fire, there, chief!"

Buff frowned. "Okay, well, they don't stop most demons, either. I mean, Fyral?"

"Armor-piercing silver rounds with personal shields against the mucus."

"Also," Carter interjected, "I developed an compound that reacts with the paralyzing mucus as a sort of binary-"

"We melt the snot."

"Bezoars?"

O'Neill cringed. "Waaaay too close to goa'uld for my comfort."

"Indeed." Teal'c spoke up. "I found great pleasure in eradicating that species by hand."

"Ethros?"

O'Neill paused, and then turned to Daniel.

Daniel sighed. "Ethros box."

"An Ethros box!" O'Neill turned back triumphantly.

Carter brightened. "Actually, based on the subtle harmonics I recorded emanating from the subspace layers surrounded the box, I was able to recreate a facsimile using birch and oxidized silver if I adjusted the polysulphide solution in a cascading increase of .03 parts per billion!"

Willow brightened. "Really? Then you could actually _tune_ the magic using Eghten's Multispace Logarithm and project the field!"

"That's what _I_ was thinking! Wait, there's a logarithm?" Carter turned to O'Neill. "Sir, this could save us months of research!"

Colonel O'Neill blinked. "We actually have one of those box things?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Jack, you told us to order one of everything."

"Well… _good._" He turned back to the Scoobies. "See? One of everything. We're set!"

Buffy folded her arms. "I'm the Slayer."

O'Neill lifted his weapon. "I'm the guy with an AA-12 fully automatic shotgun and FRAG-12 explosive rounds. My stick is _bigger_ than your stick. It's a boom stick."

Dawn raised her hand. "I vote for that guy."

"Seconded." Xander said. "And Henry agrees."

"Oh, for-" Buffy whirled. "Xander, you're babysitting him _again?_"


End file.
